Thursday, April 15, 2010

Following article appeared in the well known evening newspaper Star of Mysore, yesterday. Yesterday 14 April, was the first day of the four day international symposium '13th Board Games Studies Colloquium' at France.

14 April 2010. Star of Mysore

FORGOTTEN IN MYSORE, REMEMBERED IN FRANCE TODAY !

Master of Board Games: Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar

Mysore, Apr. 14- The 13th Board Games Studies colloquium began this morning at the FIAP Jean-Monnet Centre in Paris.

The four-day colloquium will conclude on Apr. 17. German scholar Irving Finkel in his address "A very early counting system in traditional Indian games," will pay homage to Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar III, the then Maharaja of Mysore who was the Master of Board Games.

Maharaja Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar was not only interested in philosophy, astrology and mathematics but invented complex symbolic games and puzzles. Only a few of the encylopedic records made by Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar are to be found in the Jaganmohan Palace Art Gallery while the majority of manuscripts are either in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London or in private collections in the United Kingdom and Germany.

In 1982, a remarkable double-sided Mysore game board in rosewood, inlaid with ivory, was discovered in London.

This reversible folding board game (Karmic game of Shivasayujam) is a version invented by Krishnaraja Wadiyar based on snakes and ladders.

In this Shivasayujam board, the deity appears in 'Mukhalinga' form at the centre, with Nandi, Ganesha and other deities. The six concentric circles lead to Shiva's abode and contain numerous ivory roundel plaques with images and inscriptions engraved and highlighted with lac. The four players each have six pieces, whose starting squares are marked within lotuses at the corners of the board.

Another invention of Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar is to be found not in Mysore but in the Victoria and Albert Museum. According to Veronica Murphy and Andrew Topsfield, formerly of the V&A Museum, this magic board game was designed for four-handed chess.

The Maharaja also invented a numerical table in chess, found in V&A Museum (Catalogue No. 9047). The full text (beneath a Mysore Royal Crest) reads: "The following Numerical Table in chess has been invented by HIS HIGHNESS Maha Rajah Krishna Rajah Wodayer Bahandar Rajah of Mysore, on 31st July, 1852. On this board of 64 squares termed Poornataraculpaturro, the figures are placed according to the movements of the knight, which give a total of 260 in 116 different ways, by adding the figures horizontally, perpendicularly, and in a variety of other ways, taking at a time 8 spaces that bear the same relative position to each other. It further rests with the ingenious to obtain the singular numerical property on this board of 64 squares in which the knight is made to move, for instance, 130 if 4 spaces, 260 if 8 spaces, 520 if 16 spaces, 1040 of 32 spaces, and 2080 if 64 spaces are added together."

There is a reference to the Maharaja's Knight's moves in H.J.R. Murray's "The Magic Knight's tours: A mathematical recreation."

A game board diagram inscribed by the Maharaja was sold at Sotheby's auction on Apr. 8, 1983 (Lot 209). A Karmic version of snake & ladder invented by the Maharaja, in a private collection in Britain, was later sold by Sotheby's on Nov. 23, 1987 (Lot 395). The provenance note of Lot 395 says: "Said by the late owner to have come from the Mysore Palace, as a gift from the Maharaja, in about 1875."

Andrew Topsfield of the V&A Museum says that if this dating, 1875, is accurate, this Maharaja would have been not Krishnaraja but his successor !!!

Art historian Vasantha Rangachar says the five manuscripts written in 1855 on board games writer Krishnaraja — Chaturanga Sarasvasam of 666 pages; Sri Krishnaraja Chaturanga Sudha-kara of 118 pages; Kempu Kitabu of 98 pages; Sankhya Shastra of 65 pages; Chaturanga Chamat-krita Chakramanjar of 248 pages — are now in the British Library.

Two manuscripts also written in 1855 are found in the Oriental Research Library and Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies. Incidentally both the manuscripts are "out of bounds' for public.

A city-based researcher into the antiquity of board games was not allowed to even take a look at the manuscripts because he was not a post-graduate, because he was not associated with any college body and because he was a, in the eyes of the University, common man !

The German Scholar Finkel in "A Raja's Diversions: Board Games in Mysore," and "Asian Games: The Art of Contest" (Eds: Mackenzie and Finkel) has this to say, '... their achievements are recorded in his court manuscripts, which played a central role in the Raja's programme of documentation and dissemination of his games' creation: for he wished, in his own words, to "broadcast them to the world."

This is being done in London and today in Paris, but not in the heritage city of Mysore.

'According to modern oral tradition at Mysore, the Maharaja would lock himself up in the Krishna Temple inside the Mysore Palace for many hours a day. Legend has it that Krishna himself descended from heaven and played games with Wadiyar...'

'Krishnaraja describes a board array called "Garuda Vyuha" and discusses the positioning of pieces to block the opponent: with Minister confronting the Raja at f7, camel at d5 and d8, chariot at d4 and d9, flag at e3 and e10, the house and chariot at equal distance from the Minister maintaining a balanced force, and the pawns at c4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.'

Contributors

Welcome

Dear reader, welcome, we are glad to have you here. As the text in the banner says, this blog is a window into the world of traditional board games of India. We are a team of three - R.G. Singh, Raghu Dharmendra and Dr. C.R. Dileep Kumar Gowda - who go around and visit towns, villages, temples, etc., and gather information on board games in our own way and document them.

This blog contains some titbits, stories, game rules, etc., which we found, encountered and experienced during our field trips. Please feel free to comment. We would be glad to answer any of your queries or doubts. If there are any mistakes please bring it to our knowledge. Thank you. Enjoy reading.

Note:Few of the board games featured here are available at 'Ramsons' the largest handicraft shop of Mysuru. The shop is right in front of Zoo (Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens) a famous tourist destination in Mysuru.

Contact: +91-821-2443669 or +91-9880111625

Email: ramsonsmysore@yahoo.com

Appeal

An appeal from Ramsons Kala Pratishtana to all Indian board game lovers.

We would be glad to receive for our Indian Board Game Archive any information about any games from anyone. Local names of the games, customs, traditions, victory rituals, victory songs, local rules, variation of rules, unusual experiences, photographs, anything.

Also, we are trying to put together as full a collection as possible of specimens of these games, to be preserved, for good, for the future together with rules and other information, since many old games are threatened with possible extinction due to computer games, video games and the generally changing world.

Finally, if you have old games, boards, dice, pieces that you don't want any more or that are never used any more, you can donate such material to our art foundation where they will be conserved and preserved for posterity.